Truth is the beginning of wisdom…

Quotes To Ponder

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse [money, bounty, assistance, gifts] from the public treasury.
- Alexis de Tocqueville

From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
- Alexander Frazer Tytler

When Barack Obama launched his presidency, he pledged to “build a more hopeful America.” On the campaign trail he promised to do away with Washington politics as usual.

But in the first six months of his term, Obama has indulged in a breath-taking campaign of nepotism, self-dealing, back-scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors, entrenched incumbency, and hypocrisy.

Obama’s government is not exactly the change people were hoping for.

In her devastating exposé, Culture of Corruption, bestselling author and investigative reporter Michelle Malkin cites example after example of Team Obama’s corrupt dealings and abuses of power. Malkin shows how Obama has hand-picked a team that will do his dirty work for him and exposes dozens of corrupt dealings—all of which the liberal media would rather keep hidden.

From power broker Rahm Emanuel, to pay-to-play tainted Michelle Obama and Joe Biden, to ethically challenged Tim Geithner, to crime-coddling corporate lawyer Eric Holder, Obama’s cabinet is all about increased government power and very little about helping Americans get ahead.

How the Obama White House has circumvented the pesky approval process by simply appointing unaccountable, unqualified, scandal-ridden “czars” to key posts—16 and counting

How Obama asserted he “never organized with ACORN,” but Federal Election Commission records show he paid more than $832,000 to CSI “ACORN’s Campaign Services Entity” and then lied about it

How Obama promises low-cost healthcare for everyone, yet his wife, First Crony-In-Chief, championed a University of Chicago healthcare program that was accused of “patient dumping” and “cherry picking” wealthy patients over poor

Culture of Corruption proves that this is the government of the crony, by the lobbyist, and for the well-heeled. Obama lacks the will to change Washington politics, and Culture of Corruption reveals what his agenda will mean for his presidency—and America.

An interesting article by Ben Stein in The American Spectator on July 24, 2009 says, our freedoms are on the line.

We’ve Figured Him Out

Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?

Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a “community organizer,” Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill — a great idea in theory — was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama’s plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be – a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.

These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to “protect us” from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.

Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.

There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.

President Barack Obama claimed during his Wednesday night press conference that there are 47 million Americans without health insurance as he once against pads the numbers to make them as large as possible in pushing socialized health care.

A simple check with the U.S. Census Bureau would have told him otherwise.

Obama said: “This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance.”

That assertion conflicts with data in the Census Bureau report “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007.” The report was issued in August 2008 and contains the most up-to-date official data on the number of uninsured in the U.S.

The report discloses that there were 45.65 million people in the U.S. who did not have health insurance in 2007.

However, it also reveals that there were 9.73 million foreigners – foreign-born non-citizens who were in the country in 2007 – included in that number. So the number of uninsured Americans was actually 35.92 million.

And of those, “there were also 9.1 million people making more than $75,000 per year who did not choose to purchase health insurance,” CNSNews stated in a report based on the Census Bureau data.

That brings the number of Americans who lack health insurance presumably for financial reasons down less than 27 million – that is 20 million less than his claim.

The Census Bureau report also shows that the number of people without insurance actually went down in 2007 compared to the previous year while the number with insurance rose from 249.8 million to 253.4 million.

The next Census Bureau report disclosing health insurance data, with 2008 numbers, is scheduled to be released in August.